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US SEC sues Coinbase, one day after suing Binance

reuters.com

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Re: US SEC sues Coinbase, one day after suing Binance

#301

Post by thisgoesnowhere »

thesausageking wrote: post #260
TimPC wrote: post #2

Crypto companies think they don't trade securities which is clearly wrong and contradicted by their own advertising. People buy crypto without a real use for crypto because they think they can sell it for more later. Everyone under the sun knows this. It's obviously a security and failing to register should be met by SEC cases like this one.

If that's true, then why did the SEC approve Coinbase's IPO and not doing anything about it until years later? Even in spite of Coinbase meeting with the SEC hundreds of times and testifying before congress. This is a complete change in their stance by the SEC.

Because the SECs role in IPOs have nothing to do with wether or not you are breaking securities law.

They are just testing that you are not lying in your public financial declarations.

Re: US SEC sues Coinbase, one day after suing Binance

#302

Post by JumpinJack_Cash »

whimsicalism wrote: post #292
JumpinJack_Cash wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > crypto is absolutely massive for avoiding capital controls in countries with inflation Inflation hedge means mantaining parity against a weighted basket of stable currencies such as USD/EUR/CHF/JPY. Maybe gold? Bitcoin didn't mantain parity at all, it's up some 20,000% since 2013 and +∞ since its inception. So crypto failed as inflation hedge too, because the world of finance is very specific, you can't say 'this…

> Bitcoin didn't mantain parity at all, it's up some 20,000% since 2013 and +∞ since its inception. Dai and other stablecoins maintain parity and are what is mostly used. > It also failed as a tool for capital controls and tax evasion because if you do that sort of things you don't want publicity...what happened is that crypto-bros and crypto-enthusiast went on to scream off the top of their lungs and it resulted in…

> > Dai and other stablecoins maintain parity and are what is mostly used.

Dai and stablecoins are currencies issued by private companies, if the private company sponsoring it were to disappear, the decentralized and federated (or whatever) community won't be able to support such a huge undertaking.

Besides the whole thing is pointless because whatever authority or control system you are evading with crypto sooner or later you'd have to come back into it, because nobody sells food, water, shelter, houses for crypto. Nor bitcoin nor stablecoins. Actually it's worse because the authorities will be waiting for you at on and off ramps.

Re: US SEC sues Coinbase, one day after suing Binance

#303

Post by sealeck »

cultureswitch wrote: post #125

And there we go. The promise of a form of cash outside of USA government control is terrifying to the USA government. And well, most other governments too. It is pretty obvious that when the USA government goes after crypto exchanges, what matters is to get the exchange shut down. The actual justification for doing so is an afterthought. I'm torn on the issue of whether dematerialized privacy-preserving cash (and yea…

I think part of it might be that the only use case for which crypto really works is for drug dealers to safely conduct transactions.

I believe in the right to privacy, but I believe in it as an extension of a personal right to self-expression. Freedom to practice your religion, to date whomever you want, etc (provided it doesn't hurt others), sure. Freedom to hold 10^9 USD secretly so that you don't have to pay tax on it and can peddle drugs, not really.

Re: US SEC sues Coinbase, one day after suing Binance

#304

Post by EddieEngineers »

adsfgiodsnrio wrote: post #230
EddieEngineers wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true when it’s going down and false when it’s going up. Do the same analysis of previous years during bull crypto markets and does this hold up?

Winning lottery tickets are a good investment. Losing tickets are a bad one.

The probability of making money investing in lottery tickets and BTC are obviously different

Re: US SEC sues Coinbase, one day after suing Binance

#305

Post by skinnymuch »

mulmen wrote: post #279
scottiebarnes wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well consumer comes from the base word consume, which by definition includes the buying of a good or service, which is essentially a trade. Consume: - eat, drink, or ingest (food or drink). - buy (goods or services). - use up (a resource). - (especially of a fire) completely destroy. - (of a feeling) absorb all of the attention and energy of (someone).

I was asking an honest question but I don't like being trolled. Have a nice day.

How would you be trolled? You asked and you got answered. What are you disagreeing with?

Re: US SEC sues Coinbase, one day after suing Binance

#306

Post by llamaimperative »

dcow wrote: post #290
ethanbond wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin was literally designed to circumvent state monetary systems and their affiliated controls. Almost all the crypto descendants follow this path as well. So yes, it was by design that it’s hard to regulate.

What about bitcoin makes it any harder to regulate than cash?

First of all, the actual difficulty is not really material since we're debating whether it was a design goal. Bitcoin came out of a long line of libertarian/anarchist projects to circumvent state controls. I don't know why you're pretending like this is some unique interpretation of history. E.g. the problem that the Satoshi whitepaper sets out to solve was (as cited in the whitepaper, source [1] in the footnotes) laid out with this preamble:

> I am fascinated by Tim May's crypto-anarchy. Unlike the communities traditionally associated with the word "anarchy", in a crypto-anarchy the government is not temporarily destroyed but permanently forbidden and permanently unnecessary.

Secondly, a lot of features make it harder to regulate than cash. Off the top of my head, being able to transport it over national borders via the Internet. Storing arbitrarily large amounts of it in zero physical square meters. Keeping it relatively secure without having to rely on third parties (banks) gaining knowledge of your ownership, etc. etc.

Re: US SEC sues Coinbase, one day after suing Binance

#307

Post by __tmk__ »

I_am_tiberius wrote: post #259

I don't understand why even the hackernews community doesn't see that this is all a political strategy to make sure the digital dollar can exist.

I doubt the USG is competent enough to have a masterplan like that. This just seems to me like the actions of a person (Gary Gensler) who personally dislikes cryptocurrencies and who is trying to establish himself as a political player through his "bold actions".

Re: US SEC sues Coinbase, one day after suing Binance

#308

Post by foodjinn »

mjburgess wrote: post #293
foodjinn wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SEC had a hand in the subprime mortgage crisis, quite literally there is no reason to believe they are regulating on the behalf of anyone except the large banks. They absolutely are not regulating to help "investors" they are regulating to protect big banks like JPMC, just like they did in 08.

This is genuinely ridiculous. The "big banks" can buy up and own as much of the crytpo ecosystem as they desire, and all the "whales" are "institutional billionaires". Crypto has, for years, been held by "the elite" -- and Andreessen et al. are exactly using it as a system to commit securities fraud. The direction of wealth flow in crypto is from late retail entrants to billionaire major holders who cash out using la…

I fail to see how that isn't the case when Gensler went to bat for FTX prior to their collapse in similar fashion to the way the SEC behaved in 08, refuses to clarify surrounding the second largest coin in the market, and then comes down on exchanges after years of refusing to clarify what is or is not illegal conduct.

They created a situation in which they can choose winners and losers and people are surprised that they're viewed as corrupt?

Asinine.

Re: US SEC sues Coinbase, one day after suing Binance

#309

Post by skinnymuch »

dcow wrote: post #116
ethanbond wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the real crux of the issue is that these instruments were designed to be confusing to regulate and, alas, they're confusing to regulate. The error was in thinking that a confused regulator says "I don't understand what's going on here, carry on and rest easy" rather than what actually happens: "I don't understand what's going on here, and until I do -- on my schedule, not yours -- your business is always at r…

I don't think the pure commodity coins (layer 1 networks like btc, xch, etc) are confusing at all. You do work and get rewarded with a digital commodity. It’s exactly like digging up gold, or tapping a tree for maple syrup. Then a bunch of crypto anarchists showed up and started speculating that these coins would be worth a lot in the future because we could topple the financial hegemony by their powers combined. Oka…

Do you mean libertarians or the contradictory “ancaps”? What does anarchist mean to you in your writing? Or why use that word?

Any examples of anarchists doing what you’re saying for extended periods of time like cryptobros would be helpful to understand.

Thanks.

Re: US SEC sues Coinbase, one day after suing Binance

#310

Post by beambot »

whimsicalism wrote: post #211
sealeck wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really surprising that the chair of the SEC cannot just dispense SEC positions without consulting with lawyers?

Has Gensler never consulted lawyers on the status of ethereum prior to this hearing? It should be easy yes or no from the lawyers, I'm hearing that the law is incredibly clear and not really prone to misinterpretation so it shouldn't be an issue. Or maybe Gensler's lawyers are "extremely inexperienced" if they couldn't figure out such an obvious issue?

> It should be easy yes or no from the lawyers [...]

I've rarely received such an unequivocal binary response from a lawyer...

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